


out where the dreams all hide

by l_cloudy



Series: river’s daughter and dragon’s son [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Gen, Kid Fic, Lies, Pre-Canon, R plus L equals J
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-27
Updated: 2015-10-29
Packaged: 2018-01-10 04:58:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1155368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/l_cloudy/pseuds/l_cloudy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>“Your mother,” Lord Reed told Jon, firmly. “Was a whore.”</em><br/>Jon Snow has silvery hair, bright purple eyes, and no family. Or, hopefully something you’ve never read before. Pre-canon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

When Lord Robb told Jon that Father was ashamed of him, Jon tightened his fists and screamed it wasn’t true, but deep down he knew the other boy was right.

Young Lord Robb was Jon’s half-brother, he knew, and Lord Stark had laughed and said that he was no lord yet, and Jon should only call him Robb. He had looked a little sad as he spoke, and Jon had promised him he would; but he and Robb had only met four or five times, and he much preferred not to call him anything at all.

His half-brother had another brother of his own, Jon knew, and two sisters, and a mother who was not the same as Jon’s. They all lived in Winterfell, further North than Greywater Watch, and Lord Howland once told Jon he used to live there too, when he was very small, but he couldn’t remember. Robb, who was a little older, had said he did, but that Jon looked different back then.

“You had different hair,” he had informed him. “It was brown.”

Jon had made a face at him. _Does he believe me stupid?_ His hair was a pale blonde, had always been; he was sure of that. “You’re lying.”

“’Course I’m not,” Robb had said. He didn’t look a thing like Lord Stark, Jon had decided then, no more than Jon himself did. Why does he get to live at Winterfell when I do not? He knew that Robb’s lady mother was Father’s wife, but couldn’t he have married Jon’s mother instead?

“This is why you had to leave, you know.” _That_ had piqued Jon’s attention, and he had listened closely to what his half-brother had to say. “You started to look like your mother, so you had to leave. Father told me so.”

Jon hadn’t believed him, and they had quarreled; and the day had ended with he asking Lord Stark if he could please not bring Robb along the next time they met. “He is a good boy, Jon,” Father said, gently. “Same as you. It would do well for you to be friends.”

That was stupid. Jon was not allowed to have friends, as he wasn’t allowed to leave Greywater Watch except for the times he and Howland rode north to Moat Cailin to meet Lord Stark there, but he had been bringing Robb along for two years now, and Jon didn’t want to share.

 _He has him all year long_. Jon only saw Father twice a year, and when he asked to go back to Winterfell with him he’d been told it couldn’t be done. _Robb was right_ , he thought. _He’s ashamed_.

But he knew better than ask Lord Stark about it; so he waited until they had to leave and he was on the road with Lord Howland again.

“Is Lord Stark really ashamed of me because I look like my mother?” Jon blurted, then immediately regretted it. Howland’s eyes darted towards him, sharp and intense.

“Did Robb tell you that?” he asked, and Jon nodded.

Howland did the same. “I suppose so. One would need only a look at you to guess…” he paused slightly and closed his eyes for a moment. “…to guess who your mother was. Lord Stark is not ashamed of you, Jon, but his lady wife would be.”

Howland’s lady wife wasn’t ashamed of Jon, he wanted to say. Lady Samara was always quick with a smile for him, every time. “Robb said I used to look different,” Jon continued, curious; and Lord Reed nodded once again.

“You did. He meant to raise you himself at Winterfell when you were smaller.” Grow up in Winterfell, like Robb Stark. He wondered how that would have been. There were knights in Winterfell, with swords and maces; but no Meera.

He realized something else.

“Is my mother dead? You said she _was_.”

Howland flinched at that, then blinked. “I suppose she could be. She is in Lys, Jon, she is as good as.”

 _Lys_. That was in Essos, and Jon tried to imagine when Lord Stark could have gone there. “What’s her name?” he asked. “Was I born in Lys, too? Do you think Lord Stark would tell me –”

“– Jon,” Howland interrupted him. “You need to promise me this now. You must never, _ever_ ask Lord Stark about your mother. He wouldn’t want to be remembered.”

“Oh.” He wanted to ask why, but there was no need.

“Your mother,” Lord Reed told Jon, firmly. “Was a whore.” There was kindness in Howland’s voice, and his eyes were sad, but Jon understood. He _knew_ what whores where, even thought he’d never saw one, and he knew that they did not mingle with lords. Or, at least, not for long.

“Jon?” Howland asked him softly, after a while. “Are you well?”

“Of course I am,” he said. It did not mean a thing. His life hadn’t changed at all, he told himself, except that now he knew why he only saw Lord Stark twice a year. He would still go back to Greywater Watch with Lord Howland and go on with his life, follow his lessons and learn swordplay and play with Meera.

And, one day, he would still be a knight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This comes from a quote I found online that went something like, ‘what if Jon was born with dark hair, and started to look like Rhaegar when he grew up?’ I know usually is the other way around, blond-haired kids’ hair getting darker but still, it would be an interesting scenario.


	2. Chapter 2

Jon was ten years old when he kissed Meera Reed for the first time.

They had to hide away so to not be seen, and he had to bow his head because she was so much shorter then he was; but he figured it was worth it, to feel so grown up in a single moment.

Afterwards they climbed one of the large trees by the pool they’d been standing by, and sat down on the branches; and Jon asked Meera if she wanted to do it again.

She seemed to think about it.

“No,” she said, after a while. “Not right now,”

Jon shrugged, the moment forgotten. “Alright. Wait,” he paused. “Are young going to tell your father? Because then he’ll be angry at me.”

“He won’t,” Meera promised. “He likes you.”

That was not answer. “Meera!”

She laughed at his nervousness. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I won’t tell.”

“Thank you,” Jon told her; even though some part of him couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if she did. Would Howland be angry at him, and send him away? And where to? _Or perhaps he really likes me_ , he thought, _and will have me to marry Meera once it’s time?_ Some lords did that, Jon had learnt from his books, marry their daughter to their fosterlings; but Howland was not really a lord like the ones outside the Neck were, and Jon was no true fosterling. _I’m an embarrassment_.

It wouldn’t be bad, he knew it, to marry Meera and live in Greywater Watch forever. It was a good life; Lord Howland was very happy with it. It would be the best thing someone like Jon could hope for. _I want to be a knight_ , Jon had told Lord Stark when he had been five, and his father hadn’t answered. _There aren’t knights in the Neck unless they’re dead_ , Jon had learnt, later, _and I’m not allowed to go anywhere else_. He could fight with a spear but not with a tourney lance, and soon enough he would be tall enough that he wouldn’t have a decent swordplay partner either.

“Meera,” he began, and she turned to look down at him.

“What is it?”

They were sitting next to each other. Meera, lighter as she was, was perched on a branch that was slightly higher up than Jon’s, and was letting her leg swing close to his ear, again and again.

“Have you ever thought about what you’d like to do?” Jon asked. “When you’re old enough?”

It was a while before she answered, and Jon could feel her eyes trailed on him. He did not raise his head to meet her look though.

“I’d like to see the world,” Meera said, eventually. “Like Father did. The Isle of Faces and the Riverlands and the North, Dorne and Harrenhall and –”

Jon cut her off, curious. “When did Lord Reed go to Dorne?” he asked.

Meera made a funny noise and Jon knew that, had he been looking at her, he would have seen her shrug. “I don’t know. In the war, maybe.”

 _Maybe_. They said that it never snowed in Dorne, not even in winter, and it never rained even, which Jon couldn’t imagine. _Where do they get their water from?_

“And what about you, Jon?” Meera asked. “What would you like to do?”

“I don’t know,” he said. What did he want? _Go north and see Winterfell. Go to Lys looking for my mother, and ask her why she left me here._ Jon paused, then remembered Lord Stark, and being five years old and enthusiastic.

“I want to be a knight.”

He could almost feel the smile growing on Meera’s face. “You should,” she said. “Then you can fight in tourneys and go have adventures.”

When she put it like that, it sounded like the best life Jon could ever have. “But I’d need someone to knight me first,” he pointed out. “You need a knight to make one.”

Meera moved and Jon heard the leaves shift as she climbed down, graciously. She came sit next to him, brown furrowed in concentration. “I bet Lord Stark knows lots of knights,” she said. “Maybe he could bring you to meet one.”

“I don’t think so,” Jon told her. _He didn’t answer me when I asked_. “There aren’t many knights in the North, even your father says so.”

She smiled then, as if she’d made an important discover, and her whole face lightened. “I know someone you could ask,” she said. “Father had a friend who was a knight once. They met at Harrenhall.”

Jon had heard plenty about Harrenhall from Howland, but nothing about knights. Meera continued, “he told me the story once, when I was sick. The knight of the laughing tree – I bet Father could ask him.”

“I don’t think –” Jon began, but Meera didn’t let him talk, excited as she was.

It wasn’t long before Jon was excited, too.

“We can ask him as soon as we’re back home,” she told him. “Just trust me, it’ll work.”

And Jon did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, this is apparently going to be a ficlet series.


	3. Chapter 3

The next time Jon met his father was a few months shy of his eleventh birthday, and Robb did not come.

 _That’s good_ , Jon decided, seeing the two riders in the distance. Lord Stark and… a guard, maybe, of some sort, but too big to be his half-brother. _We can do things together_ , he thought, _only the two of us_.

He did things together with Howland all the time, but he was almost never alone with him, though Jon didn’t mind sharing with Meera, and Jojen too, when he joined in. Only last month they’d read a book about the Young Dragon, and Jon had loved it. Daeron Targaryen had been only fifteen when he had conquered Dorne, the book said, and that was only four years older than Jon himself. _Well_ , he amended, _four and a half_. His half-brother once had said that they had a maester in Winterfell to learn things from, instead, and Jon wondered how that would be.

 _Boring_ , no doubt, he told himself.

The other man was called Jory, Lord Eddard told Jon, but he never came close enough for Jon to see his face. His father went to them instead, to greet them , and it wasn’t long after that Howland rode away, to the guard of Winterfell that Jon could not see. _Father’s ashamed of you_ , Robb had said; and the words had never ringed truer than today.

“Jon,” his father sounded concerned. “Is everything well?”

The words brought him back to reality. _You have only today_ , he chided himself, _and you’re wasting it._ “I’m sorry Father,” he said. He could not think of the man as anything but _Lord Stark_ , as imposing of a figure as he was; but Jon knew he didn’t want to be called that. “I was distracted.”

“Jon,” Lord Eddard began again, gentler. “Are you sure? You can tell me, you know.”

 _And what are you going to do?_ Go away like he always did, Jon was sure; and, besides, he didn’t want to ask his father if there was any truth to Robb’s words.

He was too scared he would say yes.

“What’s going to happen to me?” Jon blurted out instead. “When I’m grown up, when I’m a man. Will I still have to live at Greywater Watch?” _Never to be seen by anyone. Always hidden_.

Lord Eddard frowned at first, but then he seemed to understand. “You’re right, Jon,” he said. “Perhaps you should think about it –” and here Jon wanted to say that he had, so, so many times; but he didn’t.

“And so will I, and we’ll talk about it in a year or so. You could join the Watch, like my brother, or…” he stopped there, looking at Jon, his grey eyes so different from Jon’s own. _Like Robb’s_ , he thought. 

“We’ll talk about it.”

 _A year_ , Jon found himself thinking. A year, that was two of Lord Eddard’s visits. In one year he would be twelve. _Only three years younger than the Young Dragon when he conquered Dorne, and he was already a knight by then_.

“A year,” Jon repeated, and he smiled.

***

They were nearing Greywater Watch on their way back a couple days later when Jon saw the men. _Other_ men, not crannogmen, as tall as Jon’s father or his guard, as tall as Jon knew he would become one day. He was already taller than most crannogmen he knew, taller than Lord Howland, had been for a few months now; but other people in the Neck weren’t supposed to b3.

They were riding, like Jon was, less than fifty feet away from him, close enough that he could clearly see their faces. He almost wondered if they were knights for a moment, like the dead Freys and Darrys Meera had told him about, the ones that lost their way among the swamps and never came out. _Like the Knight of the Laughing Tree_. Howland had refused to talk about him but he had to be out there, surely.

But only a look was enough to understand that the men were not knights. It was three of them, with brown beards that were nothing like Lord Eddard’s, muddy clothes and no armor in sight. They had horses, but old ones, and no shields with paintings Jon could see.

And then they saw him.

One of the men did first, the one with the blue cloak, bright enough that Jon could still see the color beneath the mud spots. Their eyes met across the ponds and the brushes, and the man’s widened in surprise. Too much surprise, Jon decided. _Why is he staring like that?_ He surely was more used to other people than Jon was. _I should be the one surprised_.

“Vik, Darril,” the man said, barely loud enough for Jon’s to make out. He didn’t hear the rest, but saw the other men taking notice of him as the first one had, staring like he did.

He was starting to get nervous. If this is what meeting new people was like… perhaps Jon didn’t want to anymore.

“Howland,” he called, to the crannogman who was now well ahead of him; and his voice was as tense as he felt. Howland turned, his brown eyes darting from Jon to the men; and he looked worried.

Howland Reed was never worried.

“We’d better hurry home, Jon,” he said then. “Come, now.”

He nudged his own horse, galloping fast enough to take Jon by surprise. “Jon!” he called again, and he followed. One should never gallop in the swamps, Lord Reed himself had taught Jon, just like he’d taught him about the Young Dragons and the First men and how to hold a quill for the first time. And now he was doing it; and Jon was too, but he couldn’t understand what the problem was.

Later, much later, they stopped; and the sky had already started to darken by then.

They were almost to Greywater Watch, Jon knew; when usually the journey should take one more day. “Who were those men?” he asked. “Did you know them?” Perhaps they were _Frey_ after all.

But Howland only shook his head, frowning. “They saw you,” it was all he said; and it wasn’t quite a question but Jon spoke up anyway.

“Yes,” he offered. “And looked _so_ …” And at him, not at Howland, even though Jon was a normal boy and the other a crannogman.

“They saw you,” Lord Howland repeated. “How could we be so stupid…”

He and Jon? Or he and Lord Eddard? He wasn’t quite sure he wanted to know, not if it made Howland Reed angry. But curiosity triumphed in the end. “Who _are_ they?” he asked again, and Howland’s face darkened.

“Trouble.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This ran too long; but it always happens to me so I got used to it. Also, there's some pre-teen angst I'm not completely happy about, but it's justified, Jon is definitely not an unbiased POV, and he really can't help being emo so it's his fault, not mine. Maybe I'm pushing it with the angst, but I have a perfectly good excuse, and I'm stickin' to it.

They barely made it to Greywater Watch before Howland left again, with two of his men this time. He didn't answer any of Jon's questions, about the men, why they'd looked so surprised, and why was Howland himself so worried.

"I'll be back soon enough," he told both Jon and Meera, and that was it.

He didn't say anything to Jojen, of course, because Jojen always seemed to know everything, even before it happened; he had since he'd been ill as a child. Jon remembered that, Howland's serious look and Meera crying and the smell of sickness in the air, and then one day Jojen had healed, and hadn't really been a child since.

Jojen had looked worried before they left to go meet Lord Stark, Jon remembered now. He told Meera as much, and the two of them went looking for him.

"Where's Father going?" Meera asked, interested. She was always complaining about how unfair it was that  _Jon_  got to leave and she did not, even after he'd assured her that Moat Cailin was really just a ruin almost as boring as Greywater Watch, Robb Stark just a stupid Lord's son and he liked Meera better anyway. She was still curious about the world outside though; and Jon couldn't really blame her.

After all, so was he.

It turned out that even Jojen didn't know where his father had gone. "Somewhere he can send a raven to Lord Stark," he said, and Jon thought it was stupid. Hadn't they just came from meeting him? Meera said as much.

"What does he have to say to Lord Stark that he hadn't three days ago?"

"I think it's me," Jon said, and he hated that his voice sounded as weak and scared as that of a little girl. After all, he realized, what else could it be?

"It can't be  _you_ , Jon," she said, rolling her eyes; but Jojen was nodding slowly.

"Did you meet the tower men?" he asked, interested. "I dreamed you would."

"I think," Jon said. Only lords and knights lived in towers and those had been no knights, but Jojen could have dreamed of Frey men, or just men from Moat Cailin. His green dreams could be strange at times. "And they just  _stared_  at me, and Lord Reed looked all worried." More worried than Jon had seen him since Jojen had been four years old, and dying.

"Why was he worried, Jojen?"

But Jojen did not answer.

Howland returned two days later, with his friend Galbart Fenn in tow. House Fenn did not have a maester, but House Marsh did, and the Fenns shared their ravens at times.  _Jojen was right_ , Jon thought; and it was only confirmed when Howland told everybody that Eddard Stark would come to visit Greywater Watch in a fortnight or so, to Meera's great excitement.

"This is almost as good as coming with you and Father," she told Jon; and he was glad that she, at least, was happy. He couldn't help but being puzzled, and worried. Lord Stark had never come to visit Greywater Watch since he could remember, not even in the spring when Jon had been too sick to travel.

Jon's father arrived in less than two weeks, earlier than Howland had said he would. Lord Fenn had sent ravens to every castle where Lord Stark might stop on his way north, Jon learned, and he must have rode fast enough to almost kill his horse to make it in such short time. Jon hadn't been there when Lord Stark had arrived, but he heard the gossip same as everyone else.

His father had arrived with a grim face, everyone said, and disappeared with Howland before talking to anybody else. Still, there was to be a feast that night, with Lord Fell and Lord Cray and even Myriah Quagg, and Jon wasn't allowed to see his father before then.

"I'm sorry Jon," One-Eye Qarl told him. "They looked very serious."

Old Qarl was the closest thing Greywater Watch had to a real Master-at-arm, a seasoned warrior, and taller than most crannogmen. He'd been the one to show Jon how to use a sword instead of the three-prong-spear Lord Reed preferred, and was possibly Jon's favorite person after Meera, even more so than Howland at times.

"Tell you what," Qarl continued, "I can't interrupt Howland or your father, but you can go to the other man that came with him."

"The guardsman?" Jon asked, curious, thinking of the Winterfell guardsman.. Jarl? He tried to remember the man's name. Jory, Father had said.  _Jory_. "Can I meet him? Truly?"

The other man nodded. "I don't see why not. You are going to meet him tonight at the feast, so..."

"Thank you," Jon said, eager. For a moment he considered telling Meera, or even Jojen, to have them come with him; but decided not to in the end. They would only pester the man with questions, or at least Meera would, and Jon wanted to be able to ask questions by himself first. After all, Winterfell was _his_ home, or had been once, and he deserved to be the first one to hear about it.

Qarl led him to the room where the guardsman was, and Jon found himself studying him intently. He had dark hair, like his father and Robb had, and a brown beard. Where all men in the North dark-haired? Maybe that was why Jon had been sent away. Qarl knocked on the door, briefly, and the man turned towards the door.

"Jory Cassel," Qarl introduced him. "This is Jon, Lord Stark's son."

The man - Cassel's eyes found Jon then; and he winced.

"This.." he was staring, like those riders had, before Howland got so worried. " _This_  is Lord Stark's son?"

" _I_  am Jon," he found himself saying, perhaps too rudely; but this man was nothing like he'd expected. And then, because the look was making him nervous. "My mother was from Lys," he added, warily and hating himself for it. He had nothing to be ashamed about, whoever his mother had been. His father _was_ Lord of Winterfell, after all.

Even Qarl turned to look at him now. "Who told you that, Jon?"

Jon did not answer. His father had never told him anything about his mother, refused to talk about it even, and he didn't want to tell on Howland in front of this man. He looked at Cassel instead. "So, do you live in Winterfell?" he asked. "How is it?"

Cassel blinked at that, and it was a while before he answered. "Very big," he said, in the end, slowly; but at least he wasn't staring anymore.

They continued talking like that, the guardsman still cagey and Jon trying not to think much about what his behavior meant. Qarl left eventually, and the day had turned to dusk when they head footsteps, and yet another knock at the door. It was Howland, and Jon's father.

"Jory," Lord Stark said; and the Cassel stood up in greeting. "Jon." His eyes darted between the two of them, face impassive, Howland looking resigned next to him.

"I see you have met Jon," his father told Cassel; and there was something there he wasn't saying. Something they all knew, except Jon.

"I have, my lord," the guardsman said, his words charged with the same emphasis Lord Stark's had; and Jon knew there was something they were not telling him. There  _had_  to be; and Jon had never felt more like a child than he did now.

"Unfortunately, so have some of Lord Frey's woodcutters," Howland cut in, smiling a wry smile. "Jon," he added, "why don't you go fetch Samara, and Meera and Jojen? Your father wants to meet them, he told me so."

 _And why didn't he tell_  me  _so?_  Jon found himself thinking. If Lord Stark was  _his_  father, why did he always talk to Howland more than he did to him? A fit of rebellion made way through his thoughts.  _And he gave me away_ , Jon told himself; and suddenly he was angry.

 

He recognized a dismissal when he saw one, but Jon Snow did not go looking for Lady Reed. He left the room, getting far enough not to make Howland suspicious, only to come back once they'd closed the door. He hunched by the keyhole, and  _listened_.

"...Can't have Frey's smallfolk spreading rumors about what they saw," his father was saying; and he sounded worried. "It would bring every sort of attention here."

"With all respect," Jon heard Cassel say. "It might be too late for that."

"I know," Lord Stark said. Jon thought that perhaps he sounded sad, but he had never really imagined his father could be sad before. It simply wasn't an emotion he had ever associated with Eddard Stark, the strong warrior of Howland's stories. And what had the men  _seen_ , anyway? Only Howland and Jon, and there was nothing extraordinary about any of them.

But his father was speaking again.

"..keep him hidden, Howland," he said, and was Lord Stark talking about  _him_? "Don't let him go anywhere, anywhere outside Greywater Watch. Whatever those men are saying, it will all die down in a year or two."

 _A year or two_ , and Jon's heart sank. He was supposed to be a squire in a year or two, and why couldn't he leave now? He'd done nothing bad. Would he even meet his father now? And then he remembered Robb's words,  _Father's ashamed of you, you know_.

"The Free Cities -" he heard Howland say; but he didn't care anymore.

"- are too dangerous. Who would go with him? And we would need a ship, and sailors  _talk_."

Jon left then, tears prickling at the corner of his eyes. He didn't want to stay hidden, didn't want to never leave Greywater Watch, didn't want his father to be ashamed of him. But his father  _was_ , and Robb and his brother and sisters were living at Winterfell while Jon was kept hidden from sight as if he were something to be forgotten.  _Like the sick men during the Spring Sickness_ , Jon found himself thinking. Hidden away like Lady Lothston from the stories, or her malformed mad brother, like Princess Daena locked in her tower.

That was Meera's favorite story, Jon remembered all of a sudden, because Daena had been as handy with a bow as Meera was with her spear and net and, no matter how many times her brother locked her up, she kept running away.

 _Maybe I can run away, too_.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon was a _good_ kid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "you ever ignore someone so long like when you’re finally ready to talk to them you don’t even have a good excuse to tell them like yeah I was dead for the past 2 years but I’m alive now wassup"
> 
> (cit. tumblr, and also me)

Jon was a _good_ kid.

Meera said so all the time, mostly when she wanted to do something that would get them a stern talking to and Jon wouldn’t go along with it. Sometimes she would get what she wanted, but more often it was Jojen she would have to talk into doing whatever it was that she wanted. Jon didn’t want Lord Howland  to be angry at him, or Lady Reed to be disappointed, so he tried to stay out of trouble.

For the most part.

On the day Father left with Jory Cassel, Jon made his way to Howland’s study room, which he was forbidden to unless a grown-up was with him. Personally Jon had never seen a reason for the prohibition – it was the only one of Lord Howland’s rules that didn’t make any sense He was forbidden to go into One-Eye Qarl’s shed as well, but the old hunter stored weapons in there, spears and knives and even old rusty swords that had once belonged to one dead Frey or the other. Lord Howland only kept books.

The room looked exactly how Jon might have pictured a real lord’s solar from the stories, except made of woods. Real castles, Jon knew, were made of stone and had tall ceilings, and sometimes there would be windows covered in glass. Robb once had said that Wintefell had an entire garden with a glass ceiling, and Jon sometimes wondered how it would look to be under it when the rain fell. He’d wanted to ask Lord Eddard about it for months, but then  they had met the men in the forest and he’d forgotten all about it.

If he ran away, he would never get to ask Lord Eddard anything anymore.

There was a paining in Howland’s study, a real painting from the South with a golden frame that was as tall as Jojen. It was the prettiest thing Lord Howland owned, and the only one not to serve any real use.

The painting was just as pretty, and very curious. There was a scenery in it, but the ground was red. Jon liked to look at it every time he was in the room, but that night he barely paid it any attention. He went straight to the corner where Howland’s maps where, with their seas of parchment and mountains of ink, and he put a carefully folded square inside his shirt.

The next morning he silently said his farewells to all the things he loved the most. He took a long walk to his favorite spot, the pool by the great oak tree where he’d once kissed Meera, and indulged Jojen in trying one of his logic games, that always took Jon much longer than he would have liked to solve. He played at sparring with Meera, who won as she always did, and tried not to think what it meant for his future as a knight that he was always so soundly beaten by a girl so much shorter than he was. He’d asked Qarl about it, but the old man had told him not to worry, that women were forbidden from taking up arms outside the Neck, as everyone knew they would always win otherwise.

He then went looking for Lord Howland, just to see if he would tell Jon anything about what had happened with Lord Stark and the strange men, and why they’d been talking about keeping Jon hidden away like there was something _wrong_ with him, but Howland didn’t say anything about it. He asked Jon how he’d liked Jory Cassel, though, and told him that Lord Eddard would come back in six months as usual, and likely bring Lord Robb with his as well, as if that was supposed to be a treat. As Jon was leaving, Lord Howland stopped him putting one hand on his shoulder.

“Everything will be better soon,” he told Jon, smiling a smile that made him feel incredibly guilty. “You’ll see.”

Jon left the room sniffing, and extremely confused. He truly _liked_ Lord Howland, even if he still refused to tell the story of the Knight of the Laughing Tree, but he just didn’t want to stay hidden away any longer.

Lady Samara was the worst. Lord Howland’s soft-spoken wife had a lame leg, though no one would tell Jon what had happen there either, and she was very witty. Her eyes were green and beautiful and kind, and Jon was sure she must have green dreams as well. She’d never given him an answer all the times he’d asked, but she always seemed to know more than she should.

Today, Lady Reed asked Jon how he was and why were his clothes dirty with mud, and didn’t even smile when Jon told her that he’d been playing with Meera, even if she must had known exactly how that’d turned out. As he left, she told Jon to change out his humid clothes or he would get sick, which sounded innocent enough. She told Meera the same thing often; but Jon had never been sick one day in his life.

He went to bed, but he couldn’t sleep.

As the sky started to turn white in the lights of the dawn, he left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know we're told Meera and Jojen's mother is dead but I'm sick and tired of dead moms so I went back in the story and added references to her, because I love my mom to pieces and I want as many fictional characters as possible to have mothers as well. Having a mom is great and also really help balance out all the daddy issues.

**Author's Note:**

> So, I'm [on tumblr](http://www.spookielena.tumblr.com/) a lot lately. It's a thing.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Weirwood on the Volcano](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1206619) by [Basileus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Basileus/pseuds/Basileus)




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